The Vital Force Archive

Fred Lorch credits his ongoing T'ai Chi Chih practice with better balance, flexibility and strength as he ages, plus blood pressure averaging 20 points lower and improved coronary health.

Marie Dotts uses the pearl formed from an irritant to describe how her longstanding struggle with the forward and back weight shifts, and the gripping tension it caused, became her deepest gift to students.

Daniel Pienciak recounts studying Seijaku with Justin Stone in Albuquerque in 1997, the last course Justin taught, and argues that the Seijaku principle is the entree of a seven-course meal.

Amy Tyksinski followed an impulse to buy peonies at the grocery store, watched them open over days at a TCC retreat, and links the urge to Justin's "pointing arrow."

April Leffler recounts her travels to meet UK, Italian, Dutch and German teachers, the UK conference presentations that drew accreditation candidates, and the EU teachers' monthly Zoom practices open to Americans.

Four written assignments collected by Donna McElhose: students describe emerging from bipolar isolation, easing fibromyalgia fatigue, practising anywhere after 2005 cancer surgery, and discussing Justin's Climb the Joyous Mountain chapter by chapter.

Nancy Frost's four-hour drive to a Cape Cod church for Jessica Lewis's weekend retreat ends among nearly 30 practitioners, where teaching each movement seated first becomes a new awareness.

Nine new teachers were accredited by April Leffler in Leavenworth, Kansas, and candidates including Gilbert Pagat, Barbara Starke and Roksan Biktimir recount refinements, presentation nerves, PTSD healing and long delays.

Chris McLain credits her daughter Carrie's recovery from an unexpected heart attack to more than 400 days of solo daily practice, and traces three generations of accredited teachers in her family.

Silvia Coffey sets her own habit of self-criticism, learned in middle school, against a passage from Justin Stone's Climb the Joyous Mountain on how self-pity and gratitude cannot share a breath.

Kate Polk credits her T'ai Chi Chih practice with two reductions in her blood pressure medication, calmer recurring visions of a traumatic experience, and comfort during radiation for a skin cancer on her scalp.

In a note to her teacher Parker Reynolds, Liz Emmer asks whether love and chi are linked, wondering if the walls hatred builds block chi the way open hearts let energy flow.

Thirteen accredited teachers, among them Michelle Sarubbi, Pam Towne, Barbara Kristoff and Shirley Cross, name what teaching T'ai Chi Chih has given them: grounding, community, patience, creativity and companionship through grief.

Shelley Nielsen's letter to her library foundation recounts joining Marie Dotts's weekly class in January 2022, easing arthritis pain and hearing strangers stop their cars to say she looked at peace.

Kathy Grassel tells how a student who arrived late and had to stand across the room noticed the energy there felt different, leading Grassel to conclude that collective Chi has variable individual components.

Kathy Grassel tells her Albuquerque class about ospreys diving at the Tingley Fishing Ponds, and her student Peg likens an osprey beaten under by a wave to the power of softness in Seijaku.

Annie Braudy spent two weeks in Piraeus with a friend in deep grief, and her daily practice overlooking the city and the ocean kept returning her to grounding and flow.

Mary Wichmann describes leading twelve widows of fallen servicemen in one hour of T'ai Chi Chih on a deck at Holbrook Farms Retreat, with minimal instruction and no goal beyond peace and joy.

Amy Tyksinski gathers six UNM college students' written responses to the Softness passage in Justin Stone's Spiritual Odyssey, from bamboo and oak temperaments to jaw clenching, political argument and caring for a crying baby.

Tina Wells traces her path from a first class with Wendy Helms in California to teaching T'ai Chi Chih at Oxford's Restore charity and the Oxfordshire Recovery College, where students use grounding to interrupt panic attacks.

Marcella Levie recounts first seeing T'ai Chi Chih at sunset on Siesta Key Beach in 1991, then training over Zoom with Lesley Nell and being accredited in the UK in 2022 with Orly Mani, and the three Dutch groups they now teach.

Anita Vestal recounts ten years of offering free Spanish-language classes in rural Costa Rica, where clubs supplied transportation and space, and calls for Foundation grants and a new video of TCC worldwide.

Beverly J. Miles recounts an eight-day trip to Corozal, Belize, where visiting teachers held morning and bayside practices, opened The T'an Tien platform, and won Mayor Rigo Vellos's pledge to promote TCC.

Dorian Tippet recounts a boat trip up a snake-like Belizean river to the Maya ruins of Lamanai, past crocodile warnings, herons and Mennonite fishermen, arriving late to two carved stone temples.

Lorraine Lepine recounts a small group of T'ai Chi Chih teachers gathering in Belize, where twice-daily practice, jungle, ocean and Beverly's community combined into what she calls the most delicious Chi dish.

April Leffler recounts practicing T'ai Chi Chih abroad, from the 2003 Banff teacher conference to workshops in England and Italy and supporting Beverly Miles, Belize's only teacher, at her new open-air platform.

Lisa Stroyan recounts a week of twice-daily practice in Corozal, including a session at the Santa Rita Mayan reserve, and Mayor Vellos calling T'ai Chi Chih a healing art.

Marie Dotts traces her grounding from the soles of her feet to the t'an t'ien and the vertical core, describing how a level pelvic floor and slower pace deepened her root.

Kathy Grassel interviews Tyler, a retired Episcopal and Byzantine Rite priest leaving her Albuquerque gym class for Chicago, on how the Tao Teh Ching, yin and yang, and bodily worship shaped his three years of practice.

JJ Johnson describes how instructor Marie Dotts located the Bubbling Spring point below the ball of the foot, and how rooting the weighted leg before stepping out changed the start of every movement.